Our research examined the nest-building characteristics of two mouse species native to Hungary, mound-building (Mus spicilegus) and house musculus), under laboratory housing conditions. In indoor housing, material plays a very important role in welfare animals. The present study how wild choose from natural nest material. three-way test, mice were able whether make their long blades hay, nonfib...

Nephropathia epidemica virus, the etiological agent of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Scandinavia, was serially propagated in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus). Intracerebrally inoculated suckling gerbils developed subclinical infections, with viral antigen found in lung, brain, liver and spleen. The distribution of viral antigen was similar to that seen in experimentally infe...

The maintenance of tick-borne disease agents in the environment strictly depends on the relationship between tick vectors and their hosts, which act as reservoirs for these pathogens. A pilot study aimed to investigate wild rodents as reservoirs for zoonotic tick-borne pathogens (Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (s.l.), Coxiella burnetii, Francisella tularensis, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum) wa...

Rodent malaria species Plasmodium yoelii and P. chabaudi have been widely used to validate vaccine approaches targeting blood-stage merozoite antigens. However, increasing data suggest the P. berghei rodent malaria may be able to circumvent vaccine-induced anti-merozoite responses. Here we confirm a failure to protect against P. berghei, despite successful antibody induction against leading mer...

Hantaviruses are a group of viruses that infect wild rodents without causing any apparent illness or disease. New discrete-time models for the spread of hantavirus in a rodent population are formulated and analyzed. The models are structured by the stages of the infection, the stages of development, and the sex of the rodent. The basic reproduction number R0 is computed for the deterministic mo...

The relative roles of top-down and bottom-up forces in affecting disease prevalence in wild hosts is important for understanding disease dynamics and human disease risk. We found that the prevalence of Sin Nombre virus (SNV), the agent of a severe disease in humans (hantavirus pulmonary syndrome), in island deer mice from the eight California Channel Islands was greater with increased precipita...

Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is an emerging disease of humans that is carried by wild rodents. Humans are usually exposed to the virus through geographically isolated outbreaks. The driving forces behind these outbreaks is poorly understood. Certainly, one key driver of the emergence of these viruses is the virus population dynamics within the rodent population. Two new mathematical models for...

Salmonella and Campylobacter are generally regarded as the most important foodborne pathogens in the world. Reduction or elimination of these pathogens in the first part of the food chain (on-farm) is important to prevent disease among consumers of animal products. Rodents are frequently associated with infrastructural damages and eating or spoiling of stored feed and products, but the veterina...

Inadequate dietary Zn consumption increases susceptibility to esophageal and other cancers in humans and model organisms. Since Zn supplementation can prevent cancers in rodent squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) models, we were interested in determining if it could have a preventive effect in a rodent skin cancer model, as a preclinical basis for considering a role for Zn in prevention of human nonm...

Detoxification enzymes play a key role in plant-herbivore interactions, contributing to the on-going evolution of ecosystem functional diversity. Mammalian detoxification systems have been well studied by the medical and pharmacological industries to understand human drug metabolism; however, little is known of the mechanisms employed by wild herbivores to metabolize toxic plant secondary compo...